Comic Artist Steve Dillon Merges With The Infinite

God.  Dammit.  2016.

Comics artist Steve Dillon has passed.

Dillon was one of the finest comics artists of the past few decades, mixing an illustrative quality with cartooning and pitch perfect sense of tone and a moment.  Not only did he have one of the deftest pencils when it came to capturing the exact, perfect expression for every character in a panel - something I assume he did effortlessly as he did it in every panel - but his ability to change pacing, to whip between romance to horror to comedy within a single page remains unparalleled and may never be matched.

His pairing with Garth Ennis was a boon to the medium, from Hellblazer to Preacher to The Punisher.  I don't just consider Preacher a seminal comics work of its era - I consider it a seminal work of its era - full stop.  That said - not recommended for all audiences, Mom.

TL;DR: Wonder Woman at 75, at the United Nation and 'Wonder Woman v.2 #170'

Yesterday was, apparently, the official 75th birthday of Wonder Woman.  As part of that event, Wonder Woman was made a Special Ambassador of the United Nations, an icon for new efforts within the UN to speak on behalf of gender equality.

I don't know how much of Wonder Woman's origins most people know, or how hung up they are on some of the more salacious details of creator William Moulton Marston's personal life, or how that played out on the comics page.  But I do know that Marston was sincere in his interest to create a strong female superhero, not just with whom little girls could identify, but for little boys to understand that women could do all the things that men can do.  They can leap into the fray and they stand as equals (although I'd argue Marston may have had a bit more of an ideal of a matriarchy in mind even more than than just an egalitarian ideal).

"Wonder Woman" TV star Lynda Carter was in attendance

Super Watch: Supergirl Season 2, Episodes 1 & 2

When I started watching Supergirl last season, I spent a lot of time rolling my eyes and letting my disappointment in the formulaic, color-by-numbers approach take me to a dark place.  But then, probably earlier on than I'd admit, the show started doing something different from what I expected.  Rather than setting up petty jealousies between characters, rather than turning Calista Flockhart's Cat Grant character into a caricature, rather than turning Kara into a hapless dope that everyone loves only because that's what the show insists must happen despite the fact the character is an idiot ruining everyone's lives...  someone stepped in and started turning the show into something I quite liked.

Marvel Watch: Luke Cage (Season 1, 2016)

I want to say that I loved Luke Cage.  Because for a full 6 episodes, I was ready to stand up and say "this is the best Marvel TV series to date, even better than Jessica Jones or Season 1 of Agent Carter".  But, man, the back half of this series feels rough.  It's still watchable, but as early as the beginning of the seventh episode, the wheels start coming off, and it's only in fits and spurts that the show reclaims the excellence of those first six episodes, seems to remember its mission statement, and doesn't feel like it's a throwback to 1990's-era superhero movies.  I have a few hypotheses as to what may have occurred, but that doesn't save the overall project anymore than headcannons or fan theories (neither of which this blogger recommends you indulge in).  What matters is what winds up on the screen.

What does retain it's consistency, as surely as the cells in Luke Cage's body bounce back from a bad day, is the strong character put forth in Luke Cage, the grounded, human force of a man trying every day to do right.  In Luke Cage we get that rarest of characters which are slowly climbing their way back from two decades of think-pieces to the contrary, the good guy who doesn't need to be called an anti-hero to work in a modern context.  For Marvel, and maybe for the mass audiences, up to this point we've relied on our sepia-toned notions and the uncomplicated moral battle of the Allied fight against the Axis to gain access to the point of view of our upright hero in Steve Rogers - AKA: Captain America.  But in Luke Cage we get a modern man who has known the compromise all his life and despite what's past, he's moving forward in a world that broils and churns with moral compromise as the "smart" move, the only way to get things done.  And we have a hero who isn't living in a hypothetical world of cops and robbers, but in a world that reflects a lot of our own, with Trayvon Martins and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Signal Watch Reads: Hero of the Empire - The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill (by Candice Millard, 2016 - audiobook)

The study of history in practice can be maddening if the bar you hold up is trying to read up on every single thing anyone ever did before this very moment.  If that's your standard, then I'm a little behind in developing my all encompassing eye into the past.  Example:  I'm a publicly educated kid from the burbs who focused on North America in obtaining his history undergrad degree.  Aside from the bare-bone basics, I know very, very little about Winston Churchill, but I figured I had to start somewhere.  But, why not with a book by a terrific author and starting at the beginning?

I'd previously read Candice Millard's two prior full-length books, The River of Doubt and Destiny of the Republic, and I can honestly say they were some of my favorite books of the last decade.  Both books covered events which usually appear as footnotes or brief interludes in other historical retellings, diversions in the telling of longer, more expansive stories.  Yet, Millard managed to craft one of the most harrowing stories of real-life adventure you're likely to read in the Theodore Roosevelt starring The River of Doubt, and in Destiny of the Republic, she sets out to set you weeping about the unjust passing of President James Garfield, shot by an assassin and victim of the limitations of his times, just on the precipice of modern knowledge we now take for granted.

I would argue that, by zeroing in on a specific time, place and people, she was able to say more about those people with a greater degree of eloquence - using historical fact, reconstructed timelines, letters and post-facto primary sources - to shed light on moments and giants of our history.

Here in her third book, Millard demonstrates why she's becoming a favorite of many more readers than just myself.  Whether you're a history buff who's already schlepped your way through a number of Churchill biographies or - like yours truly - you find yourself embarrassingly ignorant in regards to the biography of one of the modern West's greatest leaders, Millard's spun Churchill's life as a young man into a narrative in the mold of epic adventure, all while reporting the facts.

Halloween Watch: The Old Dark House (1932)

For years I'd heard of the James Whale movie The Old Dark House (1932), and seen a few seconds here and there in documentaries and whatnot, but I'd never come across a copy of the film itself.  So, anyway, as captain of my own destiny, this October, I finally bought my own DVD of the film.

If you're a fan of what James Whale brought to the screen in Frankenstein and, in particular, Bride of Frankenstein, this is a pretty darn good supplement to those movies.  Not exactly a haunted house movie so much as a "maybe we shouldn't have stopped here" movie, like Frankenstein in particular, it feels almost more like a filmed stage play than a modern film from the blocking to the set design.  It's got some great talent in the movie from Karloff to Ernest Thesiger to a very young Charles Laughton.

This movie is batshit.  Batshit in the best way possible, but batshit.

In short, I'm a fan.

Halloween Watch: An American Werewolf in London (1981) - a non-write up

Sunday evening, SimonUK and I went to an Alamo Rolling Roadshow presentation of An American Werewolf in London (1981) - one of Si's top movies (like, he would watch this every day if you let him), and certainly one of my favorite films.  It's just fun, chaotic, werewolf-laden mayhem with a nice bit of really dark humor winding through it.  And, of course, Jenny Agutter.

I'm pretty sure I've written this movie up before, so no real point in doing so again.

The Rolling Roadshow is a series The Alamo Drafthouse offers wherein they bring an inflatable screen to an outdoors location and show a film.  They do lots of types of screenings from themed-location screenings (Jaws on the water) to showing kids' movies in the park for the whole family.  Tonight's theme was Halloween Horror/ tonight was the Super Hunter's Moon - a very bright full moon.  So:  werewolves.

Si and I arrived a bit early, and Simon got a nice fellow to take our picture.

Happy Birthday to Ms. Margot Kidder

Happy Birthday to Ms. Margot Kidder - the person who brought Lois Lane to life for four Superman films.

She's tops in our book, and part of why Lois Lane has become as important to our appreciation of the Superman story as capes and x-ray vision.

We're hoping Ms. Kidder has a fantastic year ahead of her.

Frankenstein Watch: Son of Frankenstein (1939)

The third Frankenstein movie in the Universal Monsters line of films is not terribly well known among the normals but it's a staple for monster kids.  People who don't know the movie often ask "why is Frankenstein wearing that furry shirt?" when they see pictures from the movie, and - honestly, it's a legit question.*  Son of Frankenstein (1939) picks up a generation after the events of Bride of Frankenstein, when the literal child of Henry and Elizabeth Frankenstein returns to Frankenstein castle to reclaim the family homestead, and, as it turns out, help restore The Monster to fighting form after finding him in a catatonic state.

The movie is not directed by James Whale, and of the original cast, only Karloff returns.  It lacks some of vision of the prior installments, but picks up on and expands some elements, visual and otherwise.  It also softens the story a bit more, providing us with a more sympathetic Dr. Frankenstein in the son of the good doctor.

Overall, it's fairly watchable with some pretty great bits, and at least tries to maintain some level of A-list distinction before the Frankenstein movies would descend down the slope to matinee material.  It's not exactly the world's best movie, but it's still a Halloween-worthy treat.

Halloween Watch: Critters (1986)

Back in the 1980's, I remember seeing a lot of movies like Critters (1986) on the shelf at the local home video rental shoppe.  The boxes would show you a goblin sort of creature, and promised a certain level of horror that wasn't necessarily going to go in for splatter and gore of a Chainsaw variety or even a Freddy Kreuger level of scare.  Maybe some broad humor in there, plots as basic as a Dukes of Hazzard episode.  It was always maybe a little gorier than a modern PG-13 film, but, in retrospect, there's no question that these movies were basically aimed at kids with VCR's.

There's nothing wrong with it, but I wasn't a fan of the sub-sub-genre.

I don't think I was exactly aware the movie was aimed at me as a 12 year-old-or-so as I was when I saw this movie the first time at someone else's house.  My recollection is that the kid was very excited about the movie Critters, and his dad showed up with the movie in hand "hey, I rented CRITTERS!" and I was like "y'okay..." whereas my pal couldn't have been more jazzed had we just been given a stack of fireworks to shoot off all night.  He loved the movie, and I just settled in, because... what are you gonna do?  So, I've seen it once before.

Point of fact - Jamie and I have been together 21 years this month, and I can't tell you how many times she's mentioned liking Critters as a kid.  Or, I guess, watching Critters as a kid.

And so it came to pass that when I said "well, we need to watch something Halloween-ish", she tossed out Critters, and as she has never, ever previously stated a desire to watch any Halloween movie but Young Frankenstein, I just said "y'okay..."

So, we watched Critters.